Peddling (da dah!) an Invention

Any thoughts on getting past the Not-Invented-Here barrier for new innovations? I have a hunting license to place an orphaned significant automotive innovation. However, being better with things than people, it’s proving difficult to gain a hearing, or even a reply. It’s one of those things that should self-sell on merit.

Any thoughts on getting past the Not-Invented-Here barrier for new innovations? I have a hunting license to place an orphaned significant automotive innovation. However, being better with things than people, it’s proving difficult to gain a hearing, or even a reply. It’s one of those things that should self-sell on merit.

You're not giving us much to work with.

What does it do? (save money? increase safety?)

Do you have a prototype to demonstrate?

Will it be sold direct to consumers or is it an improvement in design of some existing car component?

Do you have a patent?

Is it something easy to understand or do you need an engineering degree to appreciate it?

Are you trying to start a company to produce it or is the focus on collecting royalties?

Are you pitching to investors, customers, or some other group?

If the inquiries you made were similar to this post you may consider a proofreader: I can imagine "pedaling" a sizeable number of things but not in the automotive industry ("peddle" is what you want). I have no idea what a "hunting license to place an orphaned significant automotive innovation" means.

Happy to provide details. My thought was to couch the inquiry in terms relating to the obstacles in this type of project rather than to push the concept per se. I suspect that target companies are deluged with outside ideas and concerned about even considering disclosures

Specifically, as to the brake concept, two nonmoving aero components are employed to establish greatly enhanced convection heat rejection. The additional heat rejection is in addition to that conventionally available and becomes progressively more effective with higher rotor temperature. This is particularly advantageous in competition vehicles but would also be attractive for heavy trucks that have recently come under new federal requirements to shorten braking distance. On every day vehicles it would save rotating weight and/or improve fade resistance.

It’s been tested on a brake dyno with excellent results. Under extreme conditions the cooler rotor tends to build transfer deposits from the hotter pads, which may require a bit more investigation. Prototypes are fairly simple to produce but specific to a brake system. . And it’s patented.

It’s a patented and easy to understand concept. Actually, the answer is very simple and elegant. The problem is a bit more subtle and an engineering background may help. However, as I’ve been told, brakes are fully developed and there’s been nothing new for 100 years. So the more versed someone is in brake technology, the more difficult it is to accept anything new

Since brakes are critical, an OE brake licensee would be an ideal target, though an upper level race team would also be a good prospect also.

Orphaned means the company that developed the concept has changed its business model and no longer supports the innovation. And a hunting license is the authority to find a new home for the concept.

You lost me fast in jargon; jargon which seemed designed more to impress than illuminate. While the jargon might be worthwhile when you talk to engineers, engineers typically don't make a company's investment/money/new product decisions.

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However, as I’ve been told, brakes are fully developed and there’s been nothing new for 100 years.

Don't say this to the people who you're pitching, as they'll likely know it's clearly wrong.

Happy to provide details. ...Since brakes are critical, an OE brake licensee would be an ideal target, though an upper level race team would also be a good prospect also.

Interesting- your actual question is still a little vague (but maybe that's of necessity: if you knew what to do you wouldn't have asked...)

Maybe I'm jumping to conclusions, but I did notice that you mentioned testing on a dyno but didn't say anything about actual vehicles.

If the really big guys aren't interested yet, I wonder if a reasonable next step might be to produce a few hundred for some widely used and modded car (Mustang, whatever) and getting some word of mouth going.

If it saves weight, hybrid and electric vehicles might be a target (heavy emphasis on shaving ounces wherever possible and less sensitive to cost than normal vehicles). A company like Tesla might even just want to have one more visual design difference to point to.

Hopefully the fact that it's patented will alleviate any concerns that you'll come back and claim that they stole your super-neato top secret idea.

What types of people have you talked to so far? I think most of the manufacturers have dedicated groups for this (for example, Ford's "Consumer Innovation Office". What kind of reception did you get? (silence, "We'll get back to you if we decide to act", ???)

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As to “pedaling”, I stand corrected and plead a technical background.

No offense intended, but it shows. I'm an engineer myself. Hopefully the pitches and descriptions were a bit more polished, tailored to the audience, and manage to compress a simple summary of the problem, the solution, and the benefit into just a few sentences even if other details are provided.

Aim specifically for F1 and the like racing teams -- look for the ones that are in lower places and work on approaching them.

The F1 teams are more likely to take a chance on something that gives an edge, where every ounce means speed. Going to auto manufacturers with this idea will likely go nowhere for a very long time -- like, until at least your patent expires.

Thanks for the feedback. I do have some awhile-back experience in the field. But only as the technical/legal guy with marketing and personal-contact people setting things up. Now I all by my lonesome feeling like a coldcaller. So my rather openended inquiry basically was to gain some insight into the mindset of those on the other end of my inquiries. I expect they set up a wall since the chaff to wheat ratio is rather high.

Race teams tend to farm out work in specific areas of expertise such as brakes as do OE car and truck manufacturers. Point taken as to auto manufactures being a bit predatory. Still, competition is an area that stresses brakes and would recognize the benefit. Hybrids, not so much and regenerative braking is already the selling point.

The dyno testing was on a brake dyno and results are subject to a hold-in-confidence restriction. I’ve mostly contacted and occasionally talked to brake people/companies since they better understand existing problems and thus more readily appreciate an innovation. Without an introduction, it’s pretty much no response.

About the 100 years comment; that’s what I’ve been told rather than what I say. In context, however, it’s true. Stressed brakes convert kinetic energy into heat energy much faster than the energy can be rejected. The rotor/drum serves as a heat sink allowing the heat to be rejected over time. When severely stressed with elevated temperatures, heat rejection by radiation become the dominant mode. This is what hasn’t changed over time though of course carbon/carbon brakes are novel and function at high temperatures which facilitates very high radiant heat rejection. The subject innovation is a new heat rejection mechanism. Perhaps the first in over 100 years.

About the 100 years comment; that’s what I’ve been told rather than what I say. In context, however, it’s true. Stressed brakes convert kinetic energy into heat energy much faster than the energy can be rejected. The rotor/drum serves as a heat sink allowing the heat to be rejected over time. When severely stressed with elevated temperatures, heat rejection by radiation become the dominant mode. This is what hasn’t changed over time though of course carbon/carbon brakes are novel and function at high temperatures which facilitates very high radiant heat rejection. The subject innovation is a new heat rejection mechanism. Perhaps the first in over 100 years.

I think people here are urging you to say:

"I have developed a simple way to increase brake performance with respect to brake fade".

That's basically what you are talking about, right? My paraphrased version of the above is "Conventional brakes get hot when you use them. They get hot faster than they can be cooled by air. When they got hot enough, they glow red. Carbon brakes are good at working when very hot. My invention makes it so you don't need carbon brakes by improving how brakes are cooled."

From what I gather, it appears this only works well when the wiper is essentially in contact with the rotor. This makes it a precision item as well as a wear item. Both of those properties will make it unattractive to mass-market auto makers.

Also, the vast majority of vehicles will never see elevated rotor temperatures to begin with, so your target market is limited to cars intended for use in motorsports applications or maybe heavy trucks.

It's very non-obvious as to why this device would be any more efficient than the brake pads at disrupting and redirecting the boundary layer. This device would be slightly advantageous during periods in which the brake pads are not in contact with the rotor, depending on the pad retraction. However, you're still challenged with keeping the wiper in contact (or very close to) the rotor as it wears down over time, which is not an easy problem to solve as I'm sure you're aware.

But the biggest concern for me was this small quote:

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The data hinted at a cooler rotor with the vane and –perhaps an anomaly- somewhat higher pad temperatures.

Cooling the rotor doesn't do any good if the pads get hotter. Hopefully your further testing showed cooler pad temperatures as well.

If this is patented, I wouldn't worry too much about secrecy of your testing data. Put it out there and show everyone how well it works.

But I agree, at least post a link to the patent here... it's out there anyway, save us the time of searching for it.

On a somewhat related note, we've gotten pretty good at making heat pipes these days, in CPU coolers, etc. Would there be any advantage in incorporating such a cooling mechanism into the brake rotor and/or pad system?

On a somewhat related note, we've gotten pretty good at making heat pipes these days, in CPU coolers, etc. Would there be any advantage in incorporating such a cooling mechanism into the brake rotor and/or pad system?

Sure there would be, but I really doubt they could handle the kind of heat you see in a brake rotor.

Also, I'm not sure how you would build it. The heat pipes would have to be inside the rotor to avoid becoming worn down by the brake pads, but then where do you radiate the heat to?

But I agree, at least post a link to the patent here... it's out there anyway, save us the time of searching for it.

Very true. A lot of inventors and start-up people make the mistake of being super-secretive about their technology early on. If you have a proper patent, you should have nothing to worry about here. In fact, you're at a huge disadvantage when pitching your product if you keep your brake dyno results secret. If the product works, show it to the world in as many ways as you can.

[quote="[url=http://arstechnica.com/civis/viewtopic.php?p=24371209#p24371209]On a somewhat related note, we've gotten pretty good at making heat pipes these days, in CPU coolers, etc. Would there be any advantage in incorporating such a cooling mechanism into the brake rotor and/or pad system?[/quote]

We're veering into Observatory territory here, but brake cooling is a very interesting technical problem. The big challenge is moving the heat out of the braking system, which is tucked inside of the wheel. Rigid heatpipes would only allow you to spread the heat from the caliper around a little more within the wheel well, so I doubt they'd make much of an improvement. You wouldn't be able to put heat pipes in the rotor, because centripetal acceleration would render them useless.

The standard approach to brake cooling is to run cooling ducts from the front bumper to the rotor such that a cool, pressurized air is forced into the center of the hollow rotor. The rotors have vanes in the center to help accelerate the cool air outward and draw cool air from the center. The OP's invention (if I'm correct) in theory produces a similar effect by forcing the thin boundary layer on the surface of the rotor to separate, drawing additional heat away. The problem is that the boundary layer is very thin, so the device must remain very close to the surface of the rotor. That's difficult to do over time as the rotors wear down.

For heavy, high-horsepower cars on grippy tires, this still isn't enough, so many setups inject water mist into the ducts for additional cooling. Obviously this requires a sufficiently large water tank for the race, but it's very much worth it.

On the extreme end, WRC cars often use closed-loop recirculating water-cooled calipers up front on tarmac stages. See here: http://www.subaruwrcspares.com/2.html . These are crazy expensive and also add additional weight. But rally classes generally have minimum weight limits that require teams to add ballast anyway, so that's not a problem.

But back on topic: My advice for the OP is that theory is great, but results will sell your product. Take advantage of the protections offered by your patent and put as much information out there as possible. Worst case scenario, some auto maker implements your technology and you can sue them for damages.

I'm missing the point. There is a single patent that covers a novel technology, and apparently the OP wants the auto manufacturers to do the remaining R&D and safety checks, and then give him a large amount of cash for it.

I wouldn't shop this to automotive companies, I would do a startup to commercialize it with the goal of selling the company, and the commercialized product/IP, to an automotive company...

Which means you need to shop for co-founders who have skills and contacts in the automotive space that you do not, and raise the capital necessary to commercialize and protect your IP.

Good advice. But that’s not the mode I’m in now. I just gave my auto parts manufacturing business to my kids since they run it now. I didn’t think it was fair for me to have a big oar (like soaking up money and time) in the business when they’re doing all the work. And I still have my scientific instrument business to run. There’s an appeal to going the route of the Wright Brothers and Chester Carlson (xerography). Also, in old line established businesses, anything somewhat disruptive can provoke massive funds and efforts to fight the new guy. I have approached a business associate fairly established in the racing business. But he sold his business and has to wait out a noncompete agreement. I’m somewhat still somewhat studying the situation and evaluating my options,My purpose here is to spark my thinking –which it has- and gain the benefit of the experience of others since I’m a newbie in the pure licensing game. It would be nice to make a buck, but there’s a bit of vanity and a belief in the concept that’s the main driver. But, as I said, good advice for the general case.